The Legend Mackinnon (9 page)

“My name is Cailean. Cailean Claren.” There was a pause, then a short laugh that sounded both amused and a tad disbelieving.

Cailean Claren, my ass, Maggie silently sneered.

“I’m your long-lost cousin. You have something that was supposed to be sent to me. The solicitor in Scotland couldn’t find me.” There was a pause, then, “So he sent it here and Nash gave it to you. A large trunk. With some journals in it. From our Great-Uncle Lachlan.”

Our
Uncle Lachlan? Maggie almost snorted, then stopped. If Judd had somehow found out about her inheritance, he’d know about Lachlan. But no one, not even Judge Nash himself, knew what was inside the trunk. The original solicitor might know, but Judd couldn’t have gotten to him that fast. Could he?

Her head started to hurt. It couldn’t really be a long-lost cousin. This was simply too surreal.

“Look, Judge Nash warned me you weren’t too keen on receiving company, but I’ve traveled a long way and I’d really like to talk with you. Could you just, please, open the door? I promise I won’t stay long.”

Maggie slowly moved to the other side of the door and peered again from the very edge of the window. The woman was pulling her backpack off, and loosening the string to reach inside. Maggie swung the poker back over her head and braced her feet, ready to swing or dive, depending on the size of the gun.

But she didn’t pull out a gun. She pulled out two leather bound journals. Two very familiar looking journals.

“Are you at least interested in looking at the rest of his journals?”

Maggie lowered the poker slowly. She was for real?

“Fine, okay,” Cailean said in defeat. “God knows I didn’t want to be here anyway. I didn’t even want the damn trunk or the damn journals,” she continued as she walked to her Jeep. “I’ll just throw these out and the hell with all this.”

Maggie moved without thinking. She yanked open the door. “Don’t you dare toss them out.”

Cailean swung around, but there was no smug smile of a battle craftily won. She looked as sincerely disgusted as she sounded. “It’s about time.”

Maggie folded her arms. “Judge Nash did warn you.”

“I believe you have something that belongs to me.”

“Something you’ve already stated you don’t want.”

“Maybe so, but it’s mine nonetheless.” She reached into her backpack.

Maggie realized she was still carrying the poker when her hands flexed around it. She lifted it waist high.

Cailean’s stony expression cracked a little as her lips curved. “It’s the papers from the solicitor. I’m unarmed.” She flashed the folded documents.

Maggie didn’t lower the poker. “If you don’t want the journals, I’d like to keep them. You can take the trunk.”

Cailean merely raised an eyebrow. “Such generosity with my property.”

“Property you don’t want.”

“What I want has little to do with anything.” She paused, then impatiently brushed at the loose hairs framing her face. Maggie had the impression what she really wanted to do was massage her temples. “I need to see the journals and the trunk too. Listen,” she said abruptly, “do you think I could get something cold to drink? I’ve been on the road for a long time and—” She broke off. Her features looked pinched and drawn.

Concerned now, Maggie lowered the poker and stepped off the porch. “Are you okay?”

“Just tired.” She tried to smile but didn’t pull it off very well. “A cold drink would help. Water is fine if you have it.”

So much for her trip to Griffith. “Follow me.”

Once inside Maggie took the papers from Cailean and motioned toward the old rocker that faced the hearth. “Have a seat. I’ll get a glass.” She scanned the documents. They looked legal enough.

Cailean nodded. “It’s like a furnace in here.”

Maggie found herself smiling at that. “Yeah, it is.” She wondered when Duncan would put in an appearance. That was going to be interesting. She should probably warn Cailean, but Maggie discovered she wasn’t as anxious for her to leave as she had been several minutes ago. A cousin.
She had family. Maggie shook her head, unable to grasp it. She just hoped she could get a few questions answered before he made his grand entrance.

She eyed Cailean as she drank the water. Her features were still strained, but not as pinched as they had been. Her khakis looked well worn and more than a bit rumpled and her hiking boots looked like she might actually have hiked here in them. “Where did you travel from?”

“Peru.” She handed the glass back. “Thank you.”

Maggie raised her eyebrows.

“I was working. I’m an anthropologist. The executors of Lachlan’s estate had all but given up on finding me.”

“When they passed on the documents to Nash, they told him I was the last remaining heir. I guess they shipped his trunk here when they couldn’t find you. I didn’t know.”

“Saved me a trip to Scotland, anyway.”

“I would gladly have traded places.” Maggie waved a hand. “All this luxury could have been yours.”

Cailean’s smile was mild, but appeared more heartfelt. “You could have it all if it were up to me.”

“Are there more family relations out there to meet?”

She shook her head and gently dropped her backpack and the journals to the floor beside her. “Just me.”

They lapsed into silence, openly studying one another. Maggie smiled first and stuck out her hand. “Margaret Mary Claren. Pleased to meet you, cousin Cailean.”

Cailean’s hand was strong and callused. “Likewise.”

“So, exactly how are we related? I don’t know much about my family.”

“We have something in common then. Neither do I.”

Cailean didn’t seem all that upset about it. A week ago, Maggie would have understood the feeling completely. “I’ve been reading Lachlan’s journals. He apparently made genealogy a sort of life quest.”

“As far as I can tell, the confusion with the property was because Lachlan hadn’t updated his will recently.”

Maggie nodded. “He left my inheritance to his nephew, my father. How did they find you?”

“These other journals were found in some things he’d left to a friend in Scotland. They had some information on my parents in them, so the man who had them contacted the solicitor. I guess that was the missing link to me. I was on a dig, but they finally tracked me down. He forwarded the journals to me, along with the information about the trunk.” She laid the journals on top of her pack.

“I wonder why they told me I was the last heir?”

“I guess when they couldn’t locate me, they figured you were.”

“So, you haven’t read the journals you have?”

Cailean’s smile faded, the pinched look returned to the corners of her mouth and eyes. “No. I haven’t.”

“Well, if Lachlan was one of my grandfather’s brothers, then you must be descended from another brother.”

“You’re probably right.”

“That would make us what? Second cousins?”

“If our grandfathers were two of Lachlan’s brothers, it makes our fathers cousins. Or would, if mine were alive.”

“Mine died, too, when I was little. Both my parents did. Sort of spooky, the similarities.”

“Spooky. Yeah.” Cailean’s laugh rang a bit hollow. Maggie wanted to chalk it up to her obvious fatigue, but she sensed there was something more disturbing running through her cousin’s mind.

“So, you didn’t know about Lachlan at all?”

Cailean shook her head. “I was raised by my mom’s best friend. There was no family stuff left for me to go through. House fire,” she added at Maggie’s questioning look. “That’s how my father died.”

“That’s awful!”

“I was an infant, so I have no, recollection of him. My mom died of cancer when I was six.” She waved away Maggie’s condolences with an appreciative smile. “Lachlan
must have been living in Scotland. I never heard about him.”

“Well, he knew about your father anyway. And mine. They needed a detective to track me.”

“Seems odd that he hadn’t updated his will in all this time. I mean, our fathers both died decades ago.”

Maggie shrugged. “I think he was more interested in digging deeper into the distant past. As for me, I was raised by my maternal grandmother’s sister, Mathilda. She wasn’t much for dwelling on the past.”

“I think I would have liked her.” There was a wistful note in Cailean’s voice as she stood and walked to the window.

Maggie’s curiosity nudged her to probe a bit. “Isn’t it a bit unusual for someone who studies ancient human cultures and peoples to seem so—”

She spun around. “Disinterested in her own?”

Maggie sat back in her chair. Cailean might have been road weary, but that hadn’t diminished the sudden heat in her green eyes. Funny, she hadn’t noticed their color until now. Maggie decided not to back down. After all, the woman had tracked her down, not the other way around. “Exactly. Why did you come here today?”

“I had to. My inheritance is here.”

“Oh, right. More family history stuff. Yeah, I can see how you’d be dying to get a hold of that.” Maggie stood. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to sound so harsh. But it’s obvious you don’t care about any of this. Why would you want the rest of the journals?”

“I don’t want them. But it’s … they are … well, they’re my destiny. You couldn’t possibly understand. I have to have them whether I want to or not.” She stared defiantly at Maggie, then seemed to deflate. Her chin dipped, her eyes went flat and her shoulders slumped.

At first, Maggie thought she’d simply lost the will to argue, that fatigue had finally won out. But several seconds
passed and Cailean neither moved nor so much as blinked. Her gaze was fixed past Maggie’s shoulder, in the direction of the fire. Maggie thought she might pitch forward in a faint.

“Cailean?” Uh oh. Had Duncan returned in a poof somewhere behind her? Maggie shot a quick look over her shoulder at the fire, but there was nothing out of the ordinary. Frowning, she stepped closer to Cailean, but her cousin didn’t move in any way. Feeling ridiculous and scared at the same time, Maggie waved her hand in front of Cailean’s gaze. “Cailean? Are you all right?”

She had no idea if Cailean was having some sort of seizure or what to do for her if she was. Should she try to snap her out of it? Shake her? Move her to a chair in case she passed out? She waved her hand in front of Cailean’s face again. “If your head starts spinning, I’m out of here,” she said quite earnestly.

In that instant, Cailean blinked, then turned her head and looked at Maggie. “Could I have another glass of water?” she asked, as if nothing had happened. She paused while Maggie stared at her, then added, “If it’s not too much trouble.”

Maggie looked closely, but other than the pinched lines around her eyes and mouth being a bit more pronounced, and her skin being a shade paler, she seemed fine. “Ah, sure. Be right back.”

Maggie shook her head as she filled the glass.
I’ve inherited the
ADDAMS FAMILY
.

“So,” she said calmly as she handed Cailean the glass, “does that happen often? You blanking out like that?”

Cailean accepted the glass just as calmly and sipped. If she was bothered by the question she didn’t show it.

“Are you ill? I mean, is there something I should do for you if you gap out again?”

Cailean let out a short laugh, startling Maggie. “Ill? I’ve often thought so. Plagued, actually.”

“You want to tell me about it?”

“Not really.” Cailean eyed her steadily, then sighed in resignation. “But you’re not going to leave it alone, are you?”

“Let me ask you this,” Maggie said, relenting a bit. “Does whatever just happened to you have something to do with why you’re here for family heirlooms you don’t want?”

“You could say that.” Cailean sat down in the rocker once again. She gestured to the couch. “You might want to sit. It’s been my experience that it’s the best way to hear what I have to say.”

Maggie folded her arms and held Cailean’s gaze. “It can’t be all that bad.” Though the sudden lifting of the hairs on her neck warned her that she might be wrong about that. Cailean was looking at her almost too intently. Perhaps she should have left things alone.

“Have it your way,” Cailean said at length. “You don’t seem like the fainting type to me anyway.”

Maggie laughed despite the sudden tightness in her chest. “Oh, you might be surprised.” She gave in enough to sit down across from Cailean and offered a smile. “I’m an open-minded person. In fact, my mind has made some amazing expansions lately.”

Cailean’s smile was part indulgent, part apologetic. “Since you’ve witnessed one of my ‘spells,’ I might as well tell you. Just remember, you wanted to know. Whether you choose to believe me is up to you.” She stopped, took a small breath, then said, “Since I was little, I’ve had the ability to … know things.” She looked Maggie dead in the eye. “Before they actually happen.”

Maggie was proud of herself. She hardly blinked at the news. “So you’re saying you’re … what’s the word … clairvoyant?”

“Something like that.”

“So that’s what’s happening when you blank out? You’re seeing something? You have like, visions or something?”

Cailean kept her chin as level as her gaze. She was neither embarrassed nor boastful. In fact, she seemed emotionless, simply delivering the facts. “Yes.”

“And you have no control over when they hit you?”

“Very little.”

“Wow, I’ll bet that can be a major pain in the butt.”

A smile curved Cailean’s lips. “An understatement, you can be sure.”

“Do you have them often?”

“Fortunately, no. Until recently, I’d almost begun to think that they were going to stop altogether.” Cailean looked away for a moment. The light streaming in the window revealed the strain beneath her calm outward expression. “I started getting them again about two months ago. They were mercifully brief, vague. More of a pain than anything. I was more annoyed that they’d come back than by what I was seeing. I tried to ignore them, but that was wishful thinking. I learned that a long time ago, but it had been so long …” She trailed off and looked away again. “I just hoped.”

Maggie felt a tug in her heart and reached out to cover Cailean’s hand. It was then she realized just how tense her cousin was. She wasn’t simply weary and stressed, she was on edge. She had her fingernails dug so deeply into her knees, Maggie imagined they were making marks through her pants.